‘We are struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.’
(2Cor 4: 9b, 10)

As our fast continues, I am especially grateful for the parents of strugglers who are becoming prayer warriors. I believe that the mightiest members of God’s healing army today are mothers and fathers whose children have ‘come out’ as LGBT+. Struck down by unintentional acts of domestic violence, these parents—facedown–discover Jesus for themselves.

Another’s wound and rebellion wakes them up. At last. The God of their childhood becomes Savior and Lord for them now. He gives them a share in His heart for the broken in need of His body. They will change the face of the Church.

I met Teri at an Encourage meeting. She was distraught and nearly hopeless about her daughter who claimed to be transitioning into a ‘son.’ At that point, her goal was to amass info about ‘transgender’ realities. She learned in the next few months that gaining knowledge was her way of controlling the chaos at hand.

When I saw her next at our ‘Open to Life’ seminar, she was remarkably composed. She told me that though she is happy to learn more, she knows what God wants. ‘He wants me. This is more about my conversion than anything else. I am learning how to trust Him as never before.’

Teri followed up that seminar with a small Lenten prayer group we hosted about chastity, what it means to become whole in our gender and sexuality. Several persons attended with apparent gender identity problems. Teri’s divides are not apparent; she looks like the well-heeled and adjusted head of women’s ministry. Yet she was the first to lead out with confession about her issues as a woman and why those issues probably had made life harder for her daughter. What a woman. She goes to the Cross for her own brokenness first. She prays for her daughter out of the mercy she receives from Jesus.

Now I have the privilege of walking with Teri through a Living Waters group. I arrived at my parish early to set up one night and noticed a woman kneeling at the altar beneath the Cross. She was radiant, fragrant with holiness and looked a bit like Mary Mother of God as she united her heart with Jesus. I failed to realize it was Teri until later. No matter; even from a distance, I could discern that this intercessor was in sync with her Savior and destined to move mountains. A sword may have pierced her heart (LK 2:35), but with that same sword, surrendered to Jesus, she will thwart the enemy’s schemes. Thank God for His marvelous plan!

The rainbow protesters came as planned to our 6th annual Restored Hope Network Conference in San Diego last Friday, and as usual, barked more than they bit. (‘We’re queer, we’re here’; yeah, we know.) An activist warned RHN Director Anne Paulk: ‘You’re bigots, you’re hateful…we’ve taught our kids to love everyone.’ Huh. Apparently love applies to everyone but persons who take seriously the gender of their birth and who by God’s grace refuse to allow abuse, self-hatred, and LGBT fantasies to conceal their true selves. Speaker Janet Mefferd cited the ‘weirdly judgmental judgmentalism’ of the progressive set.

One could not stay mad for long. Guys in dresses and tutus marched alongside surly Black Lives Matter (?!) activists who threatened for a moment to block the church parking lot. The moment passed, the BLM folk left, and the motley crew ranted unfounded charges from wounded hearts for a couple of days.

We loved having them. Gender rebels came to Church! Where else will they hear how their Creator and Redeemer can love them into wholeness? Each speaker spoke beautifully about profound suffering, fruitful surrender to Jesus, and careful tending by His members. No hint of the Church imposing life-defying burdens on fractured persons: here God searches out lost ones, binds up wounds in a bond of love, and restores dignity by mobilizing these ones as part of His healing army. Formerly transgendered Linda Seiler and Daniel Delgado articulated brilliantly the sacredness of gender, no matter how tough that can be for a young twisted soul.

Jesus took the hit; He became that complex stronghold of sin (2Cor. 5:21) for Linda and Daniel. For us all. He assumed upon His chaste shoulders all our rants and filth and confusion; in dying for us, He broke the slow death pervading our lives. He now lives to give us new lives, and to make them matter for others. The joy, the humility, and the gratitude we embody have power to endure.

We endure to take the hits. Joined to our Head and to one another, we are privileged to be the targets of darkened hearts. They misunderstand Jesus; they misunderstand us. They transfer their torment onto God and His people. No servant is greater than his Master. ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated Me first’ (JN 15:18). We are privileged to shine like stars as we reflect His glory to a broken generation (Phil. 1:15).

PLEASE NOTE: Andrew will be on vacation from everything including blogging until late July.

What woke us up? Was it Covergirl magazine featuring its first ‘coverboy,’ a dude whose extreme makeup blurs any gender distinctions? Was it ‘Modern Family’ featuring its ‘gay’ married couple advocating for a ‘transgender’ 8-year-old child (talk about the blind leading the blind off a cliff)? Was it the two nuns who broke their vows to Jesus in order to ‘wed’ each other under Italy’s new ‘gay’ civil marriage law, invoking papal ‘mercy’ (‘who am I to judge?’) and intent on doing all they can to convert the Church to their new version of ‘love’?

Maybe it was the ‘coming out’ of our own family members and the muddy ‘mercy’ a worldly pastor offered in response. Or maybe it was our own wandering into enslaving liberties, a world that celebrated our rebellion while consuming our human dignity, one orgasm at a time.

A shameless culture woke us up to our shame, and the glorious light of Life shining on Christ Crucified. Somehow we remembered that He suffered for more than just high-fiving the fracturing of His own image in a host of gender identities. We knew deeper than our doubts that His resurrection cancels out the hell we have made of our humanity and restores broken willing humans to their original stature and integrity.

We glimpsed the reality of a Church being converted yesterday at an ‘Open to Life’ gathering we sponsored for pastors, priests, and therapists. We came in humble authority, declaring the power of Jesus through His body to restore a host of gender-related disorders and to set us free from all the sins we conceived in unyielded brokenness.

We entered in through the Cross; in the light of Love, we examined the fault lines on which the gender-bending craze is built. And we celebrated lives rescued from distortion and despair through members united with their Head—pastors, counselors, devout laity. We rejoiced in the dignity He fights for in the battle over our identities. And we stood together, regardless of the flavor of our faith. We joined ranks, more committed than ever to be the Church that is ready to aid in the rescue of many, ex-slaves like ourselves who too will be washed and ready for Him.

First, thank you for your commitment to your friend. Sometimes devout, energized persons like you can help prevent an already vulnerable soul from doing further injury. I realize your friend is on the verge of doing just that by pursuing gender reassignment surgery.

Gender is not a product of the mind; it is a fact of our birth. To be sure, your friend has a deep conflict with his or her true gender self, for which one must only be compassionate. Such compassion flows from the truth. Your friend has a gender self and to be at odds with that truth is a serious affliction. Your advocacy may help him or her to begin to resolve this identity confusion in the right way.

Your friend is not hearing the truth today, only pretty lies. To paraphrase Dr. Paul McHugh, the idea that gender is a matter of choice remains unquestioned in our culture and is utterly without scientific foundation. Studies reveal that in spite of terrific costs to all family members, gender reassignment surgery does not result in happiness but the same or worse mental health conditions than existed before the surgery, including drug addictions, psychotic disorders and the risk of suicide.

Your friend is vulnerable to robbers, and needs understanding and inspired care. This is a person who looks in the mirror and hates the reflection. He or she believes that self-acceptance lies in becoming the other gender. Wrong. I have worked with several persons whose ‘fantasy gender selves’ arose in response to profound distress. Their fantasy selves became the prison. It is a joyful labor of love to accompany the gender afflicted out of unreality and into the truth of their real selves.

Spiritual and emotional intervention makes sense. Why? We cannot change our genders. Guess what? Bruce Jenner is still a man! The only real choice we have is to make peace with the gender of our birth. Nevertheless, we must recognize that our gender identities (the psychological adjustment we make to our gender) are subject to profound frustration. We may feel chronically inadequate to master certain ‘gender’ tasks, or experience repulsion over one’s body type combined with a persistent desire to have different body traits.

The gender-afflicted need inspired therapy, not surgery. It is cruel to subject a vulnerable soul to knives and implants and alien hormones. We do not ‘cure’ an anorexic by exercising fat from her body because she feels fat any more than we ‘cure’ a man who feels like a woman by cutting off his penis. We help him make peace with his intrinsic manhood, just as we help the anorexic adjust to a true body image.

Your friend is imprisoned by the lie that ‘feelings’ can and should determine biological gender. Wrong. God determines our gender and we must work that out in fear and trembling. Yes Jesus is the door that swings out from the prison and yes we must open it. Praise Him—we can do so in the light of Divine Mercy and merciful friends like you.

For this transformation, we need entire faith communities. I would suggest that you check out our offerings at Desert Stream/Living Waters (desertstream.org), the national Restored Hope Network of ministries (restoredhopenetwork.org), and the international network of Courage (couragerc.org). Please stay in touch. If your friend and family want to come out and meet with some of our staff, please let us know.

Those of us who have reduced Pope Francis’ recent encyclical–‘On Care of Our Common Home’–to a holy call to recycle may want to reconsider. The man advocates a rethinking of our relationship to all of creation, including our own gender and bodies.

‘Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential part of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way, we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment.’ (155)

An artist in Palm Springs who runs Living Waters there, Brian Barlow encountered a confused young man with merciful regard for his true gender home. Who knew that a green commitment is well-expressed in tending to another’s gender clarity? Pope Francis would be proud of the following:

““Wow, what just walked up?” That was my weak response to a man God loves who stationed himself outside my art gallery in Palm Springs. He was dressed in women’s pajamas complete with a lace satin black top and a polka dot skirt accented by pink flip-flops; I watched as he rifled through his backpack which seemed to hold all his earthly belongings. He pulled out a wet-wipe and started to clean himself, beginning with his face from which he carefully wiped dirt and sweat then moved downward to clean his arms and finally his feet.

I recalled that I had a travel kit at the gallery for the times like that morning when I arrived early to start painting. I also remembered that I had a set of extra men’s clothes, including shoes at the gallery, as well as soap and water and towels. In a small way I could offer this broken homeless soul a small gift to show that he is noticed and not forgotten. In spite of his evident gender confusion, I could offer him a new set of clothes that testify to God’s design for him–a design intended for this child of God to walk uprightly in his male humanity.

I approached this gentle soul who, as I offered him the items, looked me straight in the eyes and asked, “Why are you doing this?” That is often the question I am asked when I reach out to the gender broken in this desert ‘city of refuge.’ It’s a pregnant question that means: “What is this going to cost me? Another piece of my dignity?”

I paused for a brief moment and said the first thing that came to mind, “We are a ministry that offers hope to our community through the arts. I thought you could use these things. I thought to myself, “Wow that was canned!” Sigh…Then a peace came over me and I offered to pray for him. He accepted. I asked for protection and blessed him with a firm hand on his shoulder on which he rested his hand.

I watched him walk away and there was no mistaking his gender. He was a man!

Perhaps you might ask, so what?! ‘Good for you, you dressed up a homeless transgender person to look the part of a male. Big deal!’

My response, YES! YES! It is a BIG DEAL! Calling out the true self of every person we encounter matters! God has intentionally designed each gender as either male or female. That is the truth, and truth sets us free.

Fractured by life, assaulted by abuse and isolation, broken humanity needs to be reminded of the Father’s original design. Our confirmation testifies powerfully that there is hope for what went wrong. It answers a significant question: “Was I created for more, or is this it?” Jesus offered living water to the woman at the well who lived with an unquenched thirst for more. The good news: we can offer a drink of living water for a person evidently thirsting for life’s most basic requirements, which include cleansing and clothing one’s gendered humanity.”